A few of you asked me a couple of weeks ago about communion: "Is there going to be a May communion?", was the question. Because Easter was so late this year, coming at the end of April, the Worship and Music Committee thought that we might wait until Pentecost, June 12th, for communion; in part this was because Christine and I are and have been away much of May. But a few of you asked about communion.
Lynne is going to give a more expanded view of the communion questionnaire that you filled out a couple of months ago, but most of you were quite happy with the frequency and style of communion that is currently happening. A few of you wanted communion more frequently. I am one who would happily have communion every Sunday. Frequent communion was very important to my recovery last fall when I was away. So, we are having communion today and then again on the 12th of June at Pentecost.
For many people who call themselves Christian, 1 Peter's invitation to "taste and see that our God is good" is realized in sharing in communion. By eating the bread and tasting the unfermented wine, in some mystical and spiritual way, we are made whole—whole beings, whole people, a new people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. In a deeply spiritual way, communion satisfies our hunger for a deeper connection to God, to life and to each other.
Essentially the passage from 1 Peter invites us into a mystical relationship with our brothers and sisters that make up the Royal Priesthood, the holy people, a holy nation—titles that were occasionally used for early Christians. This isn't a call to become nationalists or to affirm that God has replaced all the other holy nations with the people who call themselves Christians. It is rather an affirmation that we are made new in Christ through God's love made known. 1 Peter affirms that age-old proverb that "you attract more bees with honey than with vinegar." It is good to affirm people into change and transformation rather than castigate or demonize, which only inflames. While the titles and affirmations from 1 Peter may be more familiar to a 1st century Christian, we can still appreciate the sentiment of affirmation and thanks.
What 1 Peter clearly affirms is that we are a people shaped around something real and yet something mystical. We live this experience here and now—our lives with all of our ups and downs. And yet we are part of something beyond ourselves—something mystical or spiritual, something that transcends us or maybe takes us more deeply into our humanity where we experience fully God's presence... I don't know exactly... it is a mystery. Being human is a mystery!
But what we know is that these transcendent moments, these mystical moments, this occasion of taking communion, which is at once a physical act and a mystical experience, is that we feel more deeply our relational nature. We feel connected to the universe; we feel deeply the pain of those experiencing injustice and oppression. We feel more deeply our relationship with God. We feel ourselves part of a people, a movement of love, the Way of new life.
Thomas Merton, one of the great but conflicted mystics of the 20th Century, once said, summing up this connection well:
Only when we see ourselves in our true human context, as members of a race which is intended to be one organism and"one body" will we begin to understand the positive importance not only of the successes but of the failures and accidents in our lives. My successes are not my own. The way to them was prepared by others. The fruit of my labours is not my own: for I am preparing the way for the achievements of another. Nor are my failures my own. They may spring from failure of another, but they are also compensated for by another's achievement. Therefore the meaning of my life is not to be looked for merely in the sum total of my own achievements. It is seen only in the complete integration of my achievements and failures with the achievements and failures of my own generation, and society, and time. (No Man is an Island.)
Thus communion is a paradox of our faith. When we taste the bread and the juice, we experience that deep unity with God, with Christ as the corner-stone, with one another, with the universe, but we also experience the brokenness of the world, the deep despair of those parents grieving the loss of a child, those ravaged by AIDS, those who live in fear and uncertainty in places of war. We know as we take the bread and the cup that in a flash life is wondrous and awe-filled and yet not complete.
This life is wondrous and awe-filled and yet, as we learned at the It's Time for Palestine event last Wednesday night, at the very same time, there is work to do—work that involves other parts of the whole people, royal priesthood, and the holy nation. There is an environment that needs compassion; there is love that needs to be proclaimed.
We take communion and feel whole. We take communion and feel inspired. We take communion and feel part of something larger than ourselves where we have a part to play by praying, by being, by weeping, by laughing, by cajoling, by getting angry, by being a prophet... or as Jesus might say and Merton would affirm, by being human!
May you enter fully into your humanity, where you experience God's presence and a deep unity, as we share in communion today!
Amen.
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